A left-leaning Michigan city official and nonprofit leader whose felony record was wiped clean under a Democrat-backed law now faces assault and domestic violence charges.
Mount Morris Township police arrested Flint City Councilman Leon El-Alamin July 15 on felony and misdemeanor charges for allegedly beating and choking a woman, according to court records and multiple reports. El-Alamin, an advocate against “Mass Incarceration,” was portrayed by some as a symbol of redemption after benefiting from Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “clean slate” criminal justice program and creating a nonprofit to help ex-inmates like himself.
A series of photos on El-Alamin posted on Instagram in 2024 show him meeting Whitmer and Democratic members of Congress, such as New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. Some of the photos also show him seated at tables at an event supporting former Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential bid. In addition to winning his council seat in November 2024, El-Alamin’s influence extended to city boards handling millions of dollars in federal grant funds for housing and COVID-19 relief, according to official city statements.
“These recent allegations are both false and deeply disheartening, but I remain confident in the truth and in the legal process,” El-Alamin said in a statement posted on social media. “My legal team is actively handling the matter, and I fully intend to clear my name and win this case.”
Whitmer’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation. Booker’s office also did not respond to an inquiry.
Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who is running in 2026, has received an endorsement from El-Alamin. “The campaign was deeply disturbed to learn of the allegations,” a spokesperson for El-Sayed told the DCNF.
“We cannot specifically comment on an ongoing investigation and legal process. However, domestic violence is directly against Abdul’s values,” the spokesperson said. “Our campaign will continue to focus on uprooting it — and to standing with survivors. We will never partner with anyone found to have committed domestic violence.”
Past interviews of El-Alamin tell the story of a man who was caught up in a gangland “turf war,” embraced Islam in prison and later sought to help youth from troubled environments by creating the nonprofit Money, Attitude, Direction and Education (MADE) Institute. The institute did not respond to a request for comment.
The MADE Institute has also offered legal guidance to Michigan residents on child support cases. In 2014, El-Alamin settled his own case involving child support that a Genesee County woman filed against him, court records show.
El-Alamin served seven years behind bars for drug and weapon crimes and initially failed to qualify for expungement before Whitmer passed her clean slate program in 2020, according to Mid-Michigan Now. The ex-convict became an outspoken critic of punitive criminal justice policies, declaring in a 2024 LinkedIn post that “Mass Incarceration is one of the greatest threats to our democracy in America.”
Whitmer’s program relaxed prior restrictions to allow convicts with up to three felonies and unlimited misdemeanors to have their records expunged with exceptions for “assaultive” crimes and more serious misdemeanors. Waiting periods for expungements under the program range between three and seven years.
Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said in a video interview released Friday that El-Alamin’s alleged victim accused him of pulling her by the hair in addition to choking and punching her. Police found lacerations and bruises on her face and marks on her neck, according to Leyton. The unidentified woman described El-Alamin as her “longtime live-in boyfriend” and told police he had gotten angry because she was looking at her emails, the prosecutor alleged.
El AlaminCaseFile by Hudson Crozier on Scribd
El-Alamin’s charges of domestic violence and assault with intent to do great bodily harm could bring up to 93 days and ten years in prison, respectively, if he is convicted.
With no binding record of his expunged crimes, a court gave El-Alamin $7,500 bond that he paid on Wednesday, court records show. El-Alamin also possesses a concealed carry firearm permit that he would not otherwise have with felony convictions, according to authorities.
The politician brought his soft-on-crime advocacy to Flint’s city council by introducing a bill that prohibits landlords from considering someone’s criminal history during rental screening processes, a policy that the council passed into law in March. His office referred to people with criminal records as “justice-involved individuals” when announcing the bill’s passage.
El-Alamin was appointed in 2023 to the Flint Housing Commission before resigning to serve on the city council, according to city records and the MADE Institute. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded more than $218 million in grants to the commission throughout its history, with more than $19 million awarded for projects that began in 2023 or after, federal spending records show. The city also announced in 2023 that El-Alamin would serve on its twelve-member American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Community Advisory Committee, a body tasked with recommending how to distribute $15.6 million in federal COVID-19 relief grants.
Leyton, the county prosecutor, emphasized in the Friday video that it doesn’t matter to him how high-profile a suspect El-Alamin is.
“In my 20-plus years on the job, we’ve been very vigorous in our prosecution of men who beat up women,” Leyton said. “I don’t like those kind of situations.”
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